IDC: Strong Growth for Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters
"The unprecedented demand for server disk storage capacity and storage performance is fueling an increasingly hot market for storage area networks and the associated Fibre Channel interconnects," said Robert Gray, director of IDC's Worldwide Storage Systems research. "Fibre Channel is rapidly becoming the preferred external server storage interconnect for high-end storage solutions."
IDC's 2000 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter Forecast and Analysis, 1997-2003 bulletin reports and forecasts this surging market. IDC predicts the 2000 market will be nearly double that of 1999. The largest application shifts are from direct-connect external storage to SAN-connected storage.
While Fibre Channel hub and switch suppliers have had extraordinary market attention in recent years, each hub or switch port requires a connection on the other end of the fiber. This connection is most often a HBA or HBA chip adapter. In addition, Fibre Channel HBAs are used extensively for direct-connected storage that does not employ switches or hubs.
The HBA market posted a robust annual growth rate of 115% from 1998 to 1999. Sun Microsystems (Palo Alto, CA) and Compaq Computer (Houston) were the number two and three ranked suppliers, respectively, possessing a 36% market share. Both companies benefited from the higher port values that reseller and direct markets provide over OEM pricing levels.
Other suppliers in this market include JNI Corp. (San Diego, CA), Qlogic Corp. (Costa Mesa, CA), Interphase Corp. (Dallas), Adaptec Inc. (Milpitas, CA), Agilent Technologies (Lewisville, TX), ATTO Technology (Amherst, NY), VME Microsystems International Corp. (Huntsville, AL), Prisa Networks (San Diego), and Cambex Corp. (Waltham, MA).
Emulex remains number one
According to the bulletin, Emulex Corp., currently the world's largest independent supplier of Fibre Channel host adapters, Emulex held the top-ranked revenue position in 1999 with 27% share and $72 million in revenue. IDC ranked Emulex first in worldwide supplier revenues, at 41.3% of the merchant supplier (non-captive) market and 26.5% of the total supplier shares (includes captive) market for Fibre Channel host bus adapters in calendar year 1999, on the strength of a 170% revenue growth from the previous year.
Emulex's share of the total market (including captive vendors) increased from the prior year's 21.3%, driven by ongoing momentum in the UNIX sector of the market. The UNIX sector, which was to reach approximately 67% of the Fibre Channel SAN market in 1999, is expected to continue to lead the market through 2002, growing 58% per year according to an earlier IDC report. (Storage Systems Bulletin 18120, Jan. 1999, 1998)
According to Emulex, the company's OEM design wins, which previously were comprised largely of UNIX systems, have more recently been dominated by Windows implementations. Although Windows-based Fibre Channel SAN revenue was forecasted to reach only 29% of the worldwide SAN Fibre Channel storage system revenue in 1999, it is expected to be the fastest growing segment, experiencing a 112% compound annual growth rate through 2002, according to the same IDC Bulletin 18120.
Nipping at Emulex' heels, JNI Corp. as the fastest growing Fibre Channel host bus adapter company in 1999, based on year-over-year revenue growth of 251% from 1998, according to IDC. For the second year in a row, the results also showed that JNI was the number two Fibre Channel host bus adapter company in revenue for merchant market (non-captive) manufacturers.
"JNI's revenue growth has been spectacular," said Robert Gray, senior analyst for IDC. "JNI is the leading merchant supplier of [Sun Microsystems] SBus HBAs for adding third party storage to Sun servers. They are also the only HBA vendor focused exclusively on Fibre Channel, giving 100 percent of their attention to this dynamic and fast growing market."
Finally, IDC reported that QLogic held the top-ranked port-count position in 1999, with 76,000 ports (29.7% share).
IDC's bulletin 2000 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter Forecast and Analysis, 1997-2003 (IDC #B22058) includes supplier profiles and analysis of near-term prospects. The bulletin reports historical data on revenue and port counts. An analysis of the threat to Fibre Channel from SCSI-over-Ethernet and from InfiniBand is also included. The bulletin will be available later this month. For more information, contact Patrick Steeves at 1-800-343-4952, ext. 6787 or at psteeves@idc.com.
Edited by John Spofford